32 Strong, Habits of the Herring Gull. [j^^ 



Gull may immerse its head and a large portion of its body, but I 

 have never seen complete immersion. The bird may fly down to the 

 water for food, but it does not dive vertically as terns do. Other 

 writers have made similar observations. The following is taken 

 from Townsend's account of the Herring Gull. "When after small 

 fish or objects below the surface, Herring Gulls throw themselves 

 with some splashing and wings partly spread, head foremost into 

 the water and on rare occasions with such force as to submerge 

 themselves. In these plunges they shoot down obliquely with 

 backs up .... I have seen them while riding the water on a rocky 

 shore, occasionally fly up into the air a few feet to get an impetus, 

 and then plunge into the water so that only the tips of the wings 

 and tail were visible, coming up with molluscs and rock-weed in 

 their bills." 



Pieces of food not too large are swallowed entire, and the mass 

 may be relatively great (See Plate IV, Fig. 2). Mackay ^ described 

 the great swallowing capacity of the Herring Gull as follows: 

 " I have known both the adults and young birds to swallow a dead 

 pollock head first, the estimated measure of which was ten inches 

 long by two inches in diameter at the thickest part." One bird 

 known as " Gull Dick," and to be mentioned again in this paper 

 would swallow six or eight pieces of pork the size of a hen's egg 

 when hungry, according to Mackay. My captive gulls have 

 swallowed fish of the size mentioned above on a number of oc- 

 casions. Under ordinary conditions in cool weather, one of my 

 birds will eat four to si.x ounces of beef liver at a meal when fed 

 once a day, and it will be thoroughly hungry the next day. 



According to Townsend," Herring Gulls "eject the harder parti- 

 cles of their food, and balls of crabs, clams and fish bones entirely 

 cleaned of flesh are scattered about their resting places on the beach. 

 These balls are sometimes two inches in diameter; they are loosely 

 compacted and soon fall to pieces. They often contain bits of 

 feathers or down." 



An interesting habit of the Herring Gull is described by Town- 



» Mackay, G. H. op. cit., pp. 222-3. 



2 Townsend, C. W. The Birds of Esse.x County, Mass. Memoirs Nuttall 

 Ornithological Club, 1905, No. 3, p. 91. 



